High Winds, Stockpiled Grass, The Sun Also Rises

We about got blown away this week. The high winds started peeling back and blowing off some of the roofing of our barn. Yesterday I got up on the roof and tried to secure it back down. Hopefully it’ll stay put for a while. 

I moved the pigs to a new paddock in the woods early this week. We keep plenty of hay in their paddock for bedding, but this cold wet weather makes it hard on them.

I’ve been feeding a little bit of hay but not much compared years past. Back in the growing season, I’m sure many who passed by saw our excess grass as a waste. It’s certainly not a waste now. Instead of fighting the mud to get hay to the cows, we’re still moving them to stockpiled forage from the summer. Looking back through my notes, by this time last year I had fed over 250 rolls of hay. So far this winter I have fed about 10 bales to the cows, which is a good thing because my feeding tractor is in the shop. Having both extra hay and extra time has been a nice change for the first part of the winter season. They’ll be plenty of hay feeding starting in a few weeks.

We filled January beef shares on Wednesday. A cold task. It was about as cold outside as it was in the freezer. 

This week I listened to “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway. Here’s a few quotes:

“I can’t stand to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”

“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull fighters.”

“Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and your not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

“It is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well.”

“‘How’d you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways,’ Mike said, ‘gradually and then suddenly.’”

Have a good week.

Will